Syria alleges Israel attack

Multiple sources say Sunday's blasts targeted a shipment of missiles believed to be on their way to the Hezbollah militant group, based in Lebanon. According to Syrian state media, the target was a research center on the outskirts of Damascus.

The blasts occurred a day after an Israeli official said that his country had carried out an airstrike targeting another consignment of missiles in Syria. The research center reported by Syrian media to have been hit on Sunday had also been bombed by Israel in January.

"The new Israeli attack is an attempt to raise the morale of the terrorist groups which have been reeling from strikes by our noble army," Syrian television reported, referring to recent offensives by President Bashar al-Assad's forces against rebels.

Israel has remained tight-lipped over Sunday's incident. The news agency Reuters reports that prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu made no mention of the strikes at a public appearance on Sunday, but spoke about keeping Israel secure while dedicating a highway interchange to his late father.

"[My father] taught me that the greatest responsibility we have is to ensure Israel's security and guarantee its future," Netanyahu said.

Fighting in Syria's civil war has repeatedly spilled into Israel's Golan Heights. Israel had long threatened force to prevent advanced weapons from reaching Lebanon's Hezbollah. Speaking on the condition of anonymity, officials said that Friday's strike in Syrian territory targeted missiles bound for the Lebanese militant group.

‘We don't respond'

Video footage uploaded onto the Internet by activists showed a huge ball of fire rising into the night sky on the edge of Damascus. However, there was no immediate comment from Israeli officials on Sunday's explosions: "We don't respond to this kind of report," an Israeli military spokeswoman told the news agency Reuters. The US State Department had no immediate comment and the Israeli Embassy in Washington also declined to respond.

Syria's two-year uprising began with mainly peaceful protests met with force by the government. It has grown into a bloody civil war in which the United Nations says at least 70,000 people have been killed.

As for Friday's strike, acting Lebanese Foreign Minister Adnan Mansour was critical: "Attacks such as these will result in more tension and blow up the situation which it promoted," he said. "This will not give Israel the peace or security that it wants. In its own way, rather, it will push the region into an inflamed struggle and into the unknown."

The US question

Once Israel's involvement in Friday's strikes had been confirmed, US President Barack Obama said he would leave it to that country to comment on the attack.

Asked at a press conference in Costa Rica how he would respond to allegations that the Syrian government has used chemical weapons against rebels, Obama said he had not ruled out any action against the country but that he was unlikely to deploy ground troops. Allegations of chemical weapons had come earlier in the week, well ahead of Israel's air strikes.

Though a 1974 peace treaty is in effect to officially demilitarize Israel's Golan Heights border region with Syria, wounded combatants and stray mortar have increasingly landed within the zone over the course of the two-year civil war.

mkg, jr/hc (Reuters, AFP)